


a great deal of light falls on everything.

by incalyscent



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (why is the lowercase tag in uppercase), Endgame fixit, Gen, Lowercase, M/M, and gayer, and so I did, anyways. steve wouldn't just abandon my boy, but the next part was clunky and the writing gods said lo. stop here, italics for dialogue, local poet does prose, no beta we die like men, really gonna go ahead and not use any real tags huh, this was supposed to be longer!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 05:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19288933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incalyscent/pseuds/incalyscent
Summary: bucky is the one that's used to leaving: the war, then the train; hydra, and then afterwards.  to wakanda, and then to dust - he doesn’t expect steve to think he’ll stay.  so he expects steve to leave, even before he repeats his words back to him, and for once bucky doesn’t have to go grasping through the splinters of his mind to chase down the answer.  it comes naturally.  he wants steve to be happy.he wants steve to stay.





	a great deal of light falls on everything.

**Author's Note:**

> 'still,' van gogh wrote in a letter, 'a great deal of light falls on everything.'

_don't do anything stupid until i get back._

 

_how could i?  you're taking all the stupid with you._

 

bucky knows he isn't coming back.

 

bucky is the one that's used to leaving: the war, then the train; hydra, and then afterwards.  to wakanda, and then to dust - he doesn’t expect steve to think he’ll stay. so he expects steve to leave, even before he repeats his words back to him, and for once bucky doesn’t have to go grasping through the splinters of his mind to chase down the answer.  it comes naturally. he wants steve to be happy.

 

he wants steve to stay.

 

_i’m gonna miss you, buddy._

 

_it’s gonna be okay, buck._

 

if his fingers dig into steve’s shoulders a little too hard, steve doesn’t show it.  steve morphs from his best friend into captain america in a heartbeat, stepping back onto the platform with a head held high and squared shoulders.  just before he disappears, his eyes flick to bucky’s through the white light. it looks like regret.

 

bucky doesn’t listen to the countdown.  he doesn’t need to know the seconds. he knows that steve is gone, living some other life, dancing with another girl.  he’s happy for him, he really is, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

 

he barely hears the squabble when steve doesn’t come back on time.  when bucky was remade by hydra, they got rid of his ability to cry unprompted.  it was unneeded. he can cry on command just fine, but he doesn’t now, even though the feeling of it jumps in his chest like it could break seventy years of programming.  shuri did amazing things, but she couldn’t fix all of him.

 

steve doesn’t come back.  the platform stays sterile and empty.  sam asks him if he wants a ride home and bucky says no.  bruce and sam leave in the pickup truck and bucky goes down to the water.   _i’m with you ‘til the end of the line._  and bucky can’t help but think that his line isn’t finished.  it’s barely started, more of a collection of dashes until a few years ago.  he’s stuck somewhere between betrayal and acceptance as the air gets colder, the dusk sprinkling the water with flecks of white gold.

 

bucky’s left arm doesn’t feel the weather but it bites into where it meets the scar tissue of his shoulder.  he’s about to call sam when he hears footsteps; sam must have come back on his own. bucky has been here for hours, it seems, though time escaped him.  he tilts his head back and releases a sigh into the darkening air, a plume of fog carrying his breath. the feeling of tears still clogs his throat, and the lake is clear, crisp and dark, spread out and fathomless in front of him.  he can still tell the time and months by the constellations, and as he looks up he wonders what it feels like, eighty years ago. if steve managed to glance upwards then they would be lit by the same lights. the crunching through the leaves stops.

 

 _forget something?_  he says, without any real venom in it.  he was the one to turn down the lift, after all, but he has to give sam a hard time.  if he doesn’t, he’ll know something’s wrong. play the part. it’s what he’s always done, isn’t it?  his whole life he’s been playing the puppet instead of the one pulling the strings. and now - finally free, finally paving his own road, almost, _almost_ , free of old demons, and the one thing that grounded him, that voice that dragged him from hydra’s grasp the first time, it’s gone.

 

he shudders on a breath, and turns on his heel.

 

_yeah, i think i did._

 

steve is there.  he’s there and his mouth is curved in that gentle way, and he looks so, so tired.  tired, but at peace. bucky doesn’t need to ask and steve knows that he doesn’t need the answer.  instead, bucky lurches forward, like he wants to go to him but stops himself. his hands curl with the need of it; he stopped himself when he was fifteen and hopelessly in love, too.  before they knew what would become of them.

 

 _you came back_.

 

and steve’s smile halfmoons a bit more, and he gets that look like he might cry but he holds it in, his eyes shimmering with the water of it, his throat swallowing the tears.  he ducks his head, nods, things so familiar now, now that bucky can _remember_ , and for a split second he’s so angry with himself for forgetting.  it must have shown on his face,

 

_i wasn’t ever gonna leave you, buck._

 

and with that bucky strides forward, unabashed and unashamed, and drags steve into a hug.  he tucks his nose into his shoulder and breathes him in, and right now, he smells like smokestacks and old cigarettes, like new york eighty years ago, like a home bucky could never return to and yet he held in his arms.  he feels one of steve’s hands crawl up to cradle the back of his head, hold him close; feels him to the exact same thing he’s doing. when they part, bucky doesn’t take nearly as many steps back as he should.

 

steve wrings his hands, almost like he’s twisting a ring that’s no longer there.  bucky smiles.

 

_so how is she?_

 

steve looks up, that way that he does so his eyelashes are still splayed across his cheeks, the way that’s made bucky’s breath leave him since the thirties.  his gaze is ancient, older than it’s ever been, but his face is soft. his lips curve under the scruff.

 

_she was good, buck.  real good._

 

-

 

_hey sam, you better come back, i got something for you._

 

_you’re an ass, rogers.  see you in fifteen._

 

_don’t be late._

 

-

 

in the backseat of the truck, steve stretches out on the bench seat as best he can.  bucky supposes he never unlearned things from when he was young and frail, like the fact he’s not under six feet and can’t fit comfortably in spaces he once could.  neither of them are complaining about the proximity though, steve’s head pressed against bucky’s ribs, bucky’s arm laid comfortably over steve’s chest. sam’s driving, the shield sitting in the passenger seat, and he’s happily nodding his head to something playing over the radio, something that sounds old but was still much after bucky’s time.

 

to someone else, steve looks asleep.  to bucky, he looks content, eyes closed, just the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.  his heartbeat is steady, strong and slow underneath bucky’s fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> endgame?? i don't know her
> 
> incalyscent-writes.tumblr.com


End file.
